


Innamorata

by Chessapeake



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: F/M, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Sid/Felicia brotp, don't even care, leave me alone it's the only thing my brain will write right now, romance for my OC, simple mystery, total marysue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-04-25 07:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chessapeake/pseuds/Chessapeake
Summary: Lady Felicia and Sidney find themselves in the countryside of Italy when a sudden murder takes place. They've been around Father Brown too long to NOT investigate. Sid finds himself inexplicably drawn to the peculiar daughter...





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fluffy mary sue. you have been warned. Obviously I do not intend any copyright infringement on Father Brown or any of its characters. The Ameccis and the Cappo brothers, however, are all mine.

“I thought Italians were all about living life to the full!” Sid Carter, chauffeur to Lady Felicia Montegue barrelled full-speed down the country road, pronouncing it purposefully as “Eye-talian” because he knew it would bother his boss in the backseat. “What about all the free-flowing wine and unending pasta?”

“You had plenty of both just yesterday.” Lady Felicia was entirely unflappable.

“Well yeah, but that was in the pub! We’re off in the middle of nowhere out here. Your friend’s got quite a nerve draggin’ us all the way out here!”

The tiniest bit of annoyance finally eked out of Lady Felicia’s voice. “He’s not _my_ friend, he’s Monty’s friend. I knew his wife before she died and he married this new one.”

The car pulled around the drive and deposited them in front of a glorious old-world mansion. Three people in upper-crust attire and two in uniform came out to greet them. Sidney held the door for Lady Felicia and helped the butler and maid to access the bags. He watched his boss-slash-friend chat gayly with their hosts in sem-fluent Italian. Like a good domestic, he pretended not to watch while he made his evaluations.

The friend of Lord M’s, Signor Amecci, had to be the stout middle-aged man with the redeeding hairline, that much was clear, but which of the two women with him was his wife? Lady F had vaguely mentioned a daughter... was she the blonde? The blonde’s dress was clingy, forrest green and was accented by a string of pearls and a diving neckline. He hoped this was the daughter, but the fact that it wasn’t obvious was probably pretty telling.

The brunette standing to the Signor’s left looked about the same age as the blonde but her smile was less warm. The brunette was wearing a conservative dress of pink and white and her cold eyes drifted downward frequently.

Yep. Hopefully the blonde was the daughter.

Sid snapped back to the present as he heard his name. Lady F was still speaking Italian, but gesturing to him. He tipped his cap.

The blonde flashed him a red-lipped grin. “Welcome!” Her accent was charming, “We have room prepared for you both!”

Signor Amecci offered Lady F his arm and the brunette gave Sid a tight smile before swiveling away towards the house. Sid turned to the butler and the maid. “I’ll grab my own bag then, shall I?”

They stared. Great.

“English?” He prodded hopefully.

“Italiano?” The butler mimicked. A barrel of laughs, this lot. 

A few gestures and awkward silences later, Sid found himself in a modest but comfortable room with a rather nice view down the mountain side. He unbuttoned the stiff uniform jacke and grabbed his cigarette case. He wandered to where the car had been left, swiveling his head for any sign of where to park the thing when he caught sight of a flash of pink.

The brunette was walking away from him. He still couldn’t work out which was the wife and which the daughter, so he ambled after her for a little while. She was carrying something in her hand that she held a little gingerly, bt after a bit she slipped into the side door of a barn-type building.

“Sidney!” Lady F cooed at him and he turned. “There you are. Are you all settled for the weekend?”

“Just fine, just fine. How’s your accommodations? Better than mine I’ll bet.”

“Of course they are!” Again, Felicia was unphased by him. “I’m sorry there won’t be much for you to do here. I even asked after a pub for you, but no such luck, this place is just too remote.”

Sid had been glancing at the door the brunette went into. “Yeah, it’s fine. Say, which one of them girls is his wife? Looked more like two daughters if you ask me!”

Felicia gave him a wry smile. “Oh yes, Signor Amecci’s dear bride is only two years older than his daughter. She’s the blonde.”

“His daughter’s the blonde?” His face lit up.

“No!” Felicia laughed, “Wouldn’t you love that. No, the blonde is his wife, Maria. His daughter is the brunette, Angelina.”

“Oh.” visibly disappointed, Sid pulled out a cigarette and offered another to his friend. “Well this weekend lost a lot of potential just now.”

Felicia accepted the smoke and tsked at him. You wouldn’t have made it with either of them, you don’t speak the language.”

“Don’t need to if you play your cards right.” He waggled his brows at her and she proceeded to half-heartedly scold him.

*/*/*/*


	2. 2

Sid barely saw anything of anyone all the rest of the evening. He made an obligatory pass at the little maid, but she stared at him blankly and he was left with nothing else to do but sit in his room and read.

Bored after ten minutes, he picked up a pen and scribbled a few lines to Father Brown back home. Nothing much to put in the letter, though, he written that they were coming to stay and now that they were here... other than Mrs. Amecci’s curves there wasn’t a damn thing worth talking about.

Restless, he stretched and started outside for a walk in the fading light. As he ambled down a dingy servant’s corridor, he turned a corner and stopped dead. Not more than six centimeters from him was Angelina Amecci.

She stared.

His lips parted to begin an apology and explanation but nothing seemed to come out. Her eyes bored into his with intense seriousness. They had a steady green ring haloing a light honey-brown and they froze him. It was like a deadly predator lurked just under the surface of those eyes. Any sudden movements and the lioness would devour him.

Like a rat caught by a snake, he could only gape at her unflinching, mesmerizing eyes.

“Mi scusi, per favore.” Her voice was soft but it cut through Sid’s hypnosis like a knife. He immediately shuffled to one side of the passageway, mumbling something resembling speech as he gained back his faculties.

“Peculiar bird...” he muttered. 

In the last beams of daylight, Sid found his way to the garage where the car had been brought. He buffed out a bit of a smudge on the driver’s side door and then leaned against it. He’d have to come up with something to do for the weekend and quick. This nonsense of a foreign country with no pub and no one who spoke English was wearing thin right quick. Suddenly, he heard a car come careening up the drive. He stepped out of the garage just in time to see a beat up old junker of a thing come to a stop in front of the house, spraying gravel everywhere.

“Amecci!” The driver of the car lept out and ran to the door, shouting the lord of the manor’s name, “Amecci!”

As the driver pounded on the estate door and shouted in Italian, the passenger of the car clamored over to the driver’s seat to set the parking brake and turn the engine off.

Sid came closer to investigate the new development. It was barely light out, but it was plain the passenger was a young lad and the driver now arguing loudly with the butler was probably a few years older than Sid himself.

The butler was having no success calming the irate new-comer and soon Signor Amecci himself appeared on the terrace to raise his voice. They were so loud, Sid was completely unaware someone was coming up behind him until they’d passed right by and came up alongside the teenager who was still looking apprehensive by the car. She’d changed from her pink dress to something darker and he struggled to remember if she’d been wearing that in the corridor earlier. Not that it mattered.

As Angelina consoled the boy, Sid turned to see Lady Felicia and gorgeous Signora Amecci coming from the same direction. The lady of the house breezed past him to the center of commotion, but his boss stood by with him.

“What’s all this then?” He jerked his head to where nearly everyone was yelling.

“I’m not... entirely sure...” She paused to listen for a while. “I think they’re fighting about water? It’s hard to tell and I’m not sure I’ve got it right, but whatever it is, Amecci’s being accused of something that’s leaving whoever this poor soul is without some money.. That’s the best I can make out I’m afraid- oh!”

As the rough translation was happening, Signora Amecci seemed to have helped everyone calm down enough to speak at normal volumes. She took the lad by the hand, ignoring Angelina’s protective arm around him, and lead all of them inside the house.

Simultaneously, Lady Felicia and Sid turned to each other. “I’ll go see what that’s all about shall I?” She went in the front door and Sid snuck back around to the service entrance, notebook ready to jot down any phrases the staff said he could ask about later.

*/*/*/*

“For the last _time_ , no. speak. Italiano!”

Sid had been repeating those words in various ways for nearly the whole day and it was exhausting.

He’d been woken up that morning by shouting in an unfamiliar language and pounding coming from all over. Everyone was in an uproar and the Italian police were less than Helpful. Sid had no idea what was going on, but he’d been cordoned off in his room and every so often a different copper would come in and try communicating with him, only to discover--yet again--that he couldn’t understand a word and they’d act all put out, like it was his fault no one’d told them he spoke English and storm right back out. So he sat.

Finally, a familiar voice began to drift to his ears in halting Italian.

“Cor, took you long enough!” Lady Felicia was still pleading--or, doing _something_ \--to the officer in Italian.

She eventually turned to him. “I’m _so_ sorry, Sidney! My Italian isn’t what it used to be and it just took ages to get down here. But they have an officer who speaks English coming!” He could sense the mask of cheeriness a mile away.

“And what exactly are they doing here anyway? Those blokes from last night?”

Without changing her face, Lady F said, “Not...er, not exactly. You see, Signor Amecci is... well, dead. And Elmidio and his brother are missing.”

Sid did not share her talent for a cheery farce. “Dead?! How? When? And who the bloody hell is Elmidio?”

Blonde hair flipping as she bounced her head from copper to chauffeur, Lady Felicia gave a little sing-songy laugh, “Stay calm, Sidney! We don’t need them suspecting the foreign driver, now do we? Signor Amecci was murdered.” She’d never looked so pleased. “He was stabbed through the back of the neck and it was gruesome.” Her tone wasn’t a sing-song anymore, but it was pleasant and calm.

Sid swallowed.

“The two people from last night were a farmhand who works the vineyard, Elmidio, and his little brother Guiseppe. They’re both missing and the police want to question Elmidio.”

Looking from her to the policeman, Sid sensed there was more. “But...” He prompted.

“But... They’ve asked us not to leave because... well... they’ve discovered certain items in my room and you and I are part of the list of suspicious persons I suppose.” Sid’s eyes had already narrowed.

“What certain items?”

“Elmidios... erm... underthings.”

*/*/*/*


	3. 3

Sid and Lady Felicia sat in a room that probably had at one point been used as some sort of storage but now only housed a table and some chairs. They sat side-by-side, arms crossed.

“You slept with a murderer.” He didn’t bother looking at her. 

“He’s not a murderer,” she snapped. “He’s... just... been through a lot. His parents are gone, he has to care for his brother, and Amecci isn’t--wasn’t the best neighbor.” 

She paused as the tension slowly mounted. “...or... employer.” 

Sid let out a groan of despair. 

“Now! That doesn’t mean he killed him!” 

“Oh, no, not at all! Just that he slept with a married woman and then slipped away without his drawers and it just so _happened_ that the man who cheated him was killed and he’s probably just in hiding for _other_ reasons.” 

She sniffed. “Well you didn’t have to say it like that...” 

Her chauffeur's head hit his hands and his muffled voice was full of despair. “Where is Father Brown when you need him? Why did I ever leave England? Hell! Why’d I leave _London_? I could be sittin’ pretty in a flat with a gorgeous girl. But no! No, I’m in some foreign country with my boss who slept with a murder suspect!” He leaned his face up and let his fingers slide down his cheeks, groaning. “I’m gonna die in an Italian prison cell.” 

“Oh stop being dramatic!” He laid his head on the table. “You and I have picked up enough of Father Brown’s methods, we should be able to sort _something_ out. At the very least we co-”

The door handle made an ancient and clamorous noise as it was unlocked and opened. One of the constables who’d tried to talk to Sid earlier came in--glowering. He stepped to one side and allowed Angelina Amecci to step through behind him.

She started at them.

They stared back.

She turned to the policeman and gestured with her head. He gave her an exaggerated shrug and she rolled her eyes and tsked him.

With a confident stride that completely went against what they’d seen of her so far, she came to their table and motioned for them to rise. They obeyed.

“I’ve managed your freedom and I need assistance. Follow me if you don’t mind.” Her accent wasn’t as thick as her stepmother’s and her voice was smoother. Something in Sid’s brain traveled back to that hallway and his heart sped up. But it was just nerves. They were in an unfamiliar place and strange things were going on. Just nerves.

 

*/*/*/*

 

They all three of them sat in Miss Amecci’s bedroom. Sid and Lady Felicia on a comfortable settee, and the mysterious young hostess herself on the edge of her bed.

She smoothed a pleat in her skirt as she spoke, “My papa deserved to die, I’m sure. But Elmidio, he could not do this. No, he work hard on my papa’s land all his life, I know he would not do this.” Cooly, she looked into their eyes. “It was Maria. She is a snake after my papa’s money since the day they met and she has now decided to strike.”

Her hands folded into her lap and she gazed at them matter-of-factly. Felicia took several controlled breaths. Sid, untrained in the social arts, gaped at her with an incredulous expression.

“Is very simple, you see,” Angelica tried again, “I come to you because the police, they are charmed by Maria. They will assume Elmidio’s guilt and not investigate to prove she is guilty.

“You seem awful sure of her guilt.”

Her eyes locked onto Sid’s once again. Once again, he shrank and was spellbound. Only for a second this time, then Lady F rescued him by getting to her feet and announcing, “We will help find the guilty party, whomever they may be. Now,” hands clasped behind her, she strode to the window, “What would Father Brown do?”

Angelina looked from Felicia’s back to Sid. He waved a hand, “Priest back home.”

“He would establish the time of death, and interview everyone in the house!”

“ _La Polizia_ say it was two fifteen in the morning.”

“Good girl! Other than the Cappo brothers and the three of us, who was here at that hour?”

“Maria, her maid, papa’s butler. The rest of staff go home after supper.”

“Can we confirm they all did in fact go home?” Angelina nodded. “Good. I don’t think the staff know any english and your stepmother doesn’t appear particularly fond of you, so I should interview her and you see to anything the others may have heard or seen.” The pair of uppercrust ladies shook hands and immediately set out.

Sid stared.

“Don’t mind me... I’ll... check on the Rolls. Again.”

 

*/*/*/*

  



End file.
